Friday the 4th of May is the last day of classes. Come out and celebrate with senior studio art majors as they host the reception for their exhibitions. The shows will be up in the University Art Gallery from Monday, April 30th, to Friday, and the concluding reception is Friday, 6 pm, in the Gallery.

Friday at 6 pm come and join the graduating BA students to celebrate their capstone exhibition, which is on display in the University Gallery until that evening. Help us congratulate the students on completion of their degree (and enjoy some lovely snacks while you do)!

Laura Bigger’s Art Foundations I students are spending a couple of weeks enjoying the lushness in the Magruder Hall Greenhouse amid winter gloom! Their botanical watercolors will be on display in Ophelia Parrish the week after Thanksgiving Break.

Professor Lindsey Dunnagan’s Painting I class took advantage of the wonderful warm weather we’ve been having to go outside and practice their art outside the studio, following in the footsteps of such luminaries as Renoir and Monet. It was beautiful but, sadly for the artists, rain is predicted for the next couple of days.

Join us Tuesday, August 29th at 5pm for the Fall 2017 New Work by Truman State Art Faculty show, featuring works from Professors Matt Derezinski, Lindsey Dunnagan, Aaron Neeley, Russell Nelson, and Wynne Wilbur. The show will be up through the 6th of October.

Painting professor Lindsey Dunnagan invites people to participate in her new artwork at Paul Artspace Residency in Saint Louis, on August 6th. She writes:

Carrying resentment, anger, or regret can negatively affect mental health and the body. International Forgiveness Day (August 6th, 2017) provides an opportunity to shed these feelings. In this interactive project, visitors are invited to Paul Artspace in Saint Louis where they can transfer unwanted negative emotions to “stones” through writing.

These stones are interconnected sculptural forms made of concrete that are absorbent and heavy. Once participants write or draw on the concrete forms they may cover parts or their entire message with a black polish. Then visitors can leave their stones in the forest.

Because the concrete is heavy, it serves as a metaphor of emotional weight. Leaving the stones behind is physical act of literally letting go and a symbolic way of healing.

After the event, stones will be collected for a sculptural altar in a gallery where the project can continue. In the gallery, new visitors may write on new stones while sifting through the ones others have left. My hope is that this project can help people feel less alone and provide some peace for people who are dealing with difficult issues.

The details:

When:August 6th, 12 – 6pm

Where: Paul Artspace 14516 Sinks Rd, Florissant, MO 63034

For more details, including a map to the location, take a look at her website.

Art professors Lindsey Dunnagan and Francine Fox promoted interdisciplinary studies by inviting their students to sketch or paint in partnership with the sciences for first-hand experience with live, unique subjects.
Dunnagan’s class worked with science professors, including Jay Bauman, Elisabeth Hooper and Timothy Waston. Bauman taught students how to attach reflective nodes to their bodies and capture motion in 360 degrees by using special recording devices in the Piper Lab. Students painted how meaning is conveyed in body movements using the technology.

In another project, students painted plants and animals from the greenhouse using elements of a Japanese marbling technique and seed collections. Walston also set up a lab for students to investigate single cell organisms from pond water. The students also explored how other objects, such as dried plants, a cracked egg and clothes, looked when magnified a thousand times.

Teams within Fox’s class created multi-panel pieces of artwork centering on a given theme to render realistic representations of their subject matter. Later depictions also included distortions of their imagery to better communicate their concepts. Continue reading →

New Assistant Professor of Painting, Lindsey Dunnagan, is giving this week’s “#15 for Art” talk. Come to the University Gallery on Thursday October 20th at 4:45 pm. These images may give you a sense of her work, but come and see what she talks about on Thursday afternoon.

Professor Dunnagan has a major art series which just had its first public exhibit this past summer. Her The Journey Home Project was featured at Carneal Simmons Contemporary Art in Dallas, TX, from late July to late August, 2016. She describes the process of creation and the work itself:

For the past year, I collected locations from people in North Texas and beyond, including various student groups and a refugee center in Dallas. Now their names and “ideas of home” have been painted onto a large-scale installation that forms a labyrinth.

As visitors walk through the painted translucent walls, they may find a location that holds significance to them while also experiencing other places that are cherished. In this way, the project presents the world as a treasure and a place to discover; it intimates a deep connection we have with each other and the planet.

Lindsey Dunnagan, The Journey Home Project, on display in Dallas, August 2016.

In addition, Lindsey Dunnagan installed a large commissioned work in Fort Worth, TX, at Store #532 of the Kroger Company. Native Treasures is painted and drawn with watercolor, ink, salt, and acrylic on Clear Acrylic. You can see it in Fort Worth at 5241 N Tarrant Parkway.